Tragic Kingdom
by Jilly-chan
Summary: Mikage POV. A story that looks beneath Akio's lies and through Mikage's misconceptions. Including the mysterious project to capture eternity that joins the two of them. Set before and during the Black Rose Saga.


Tragic Kingdom by Jillian Storm  
  
(Disclaimer: characters not mine. Author's Notes: Hi! This was my first Utena fanfic ever and I decided I wanted to store my Mikage-fic here also. I adore the salmon-haired guy and I've read many great fics about him since I wrote this-especially those by Celeste Goodchild and also Gabi-hime. I did take some liberties with the story, but I wanted to re-explore Professor Nemuro from the Black Rose Saga and what may have really been happening beneath Akio's lies and Nemuro's misconceptions. Contains spoilers through the end of the Black Rose Saga season. Song lyrics provided by No Doubt. My theory: this song doesn't make any sense unless you put it in an Utena framework. Enjoy!)  
  
Once was a magical place  
  
over time it was lost  
  
price increased the cost  
  
now the fortune of the kingdom  
  
is locked up in its dungeon vaults.  
  
Morning light was shifting across my desk, slowly indicating the creeping minutes of the day. I watched it move from the edge of neatly stacked papers toward the edge of the keyboard. And I heard voices as they float in from the hall. "That man is so stiff. Calculates everything like he was a computer." Two students. I could see them as they passed. The younger man, his face shadowed grey with fear, nervously glanced into my office. Our eyes met for the briefest of moments as he quickened his step. "Ah, you shouldn't say things like that about Professor Nemuro, Sho-kun . . ."  
  
I wasn't close to the students working on Akio's projects. They competed between themselves for certain assignments and privileges. I had taken academics seriously, doubling up on my course work and finishing my graduate work while my peers were finishing their high school requirements. Now I was among my peers again, but I was intellectually separated from them. I appeared aloof, but to be honest--I couldn't compute how to fathom the distance that had grown. I might be respected, but I would never make friends with the students. I might be assigned to Akio's mission, but I was not going to participate in the activities.  
  
I recorded my latest findings onto the hard drive, deciphering my various notes scrawled on notepaper, receipts, napkins. Inspiration seemed to hit anywhere. Akio's puzzle followed me everywhere. The intrigue of his impossible request was what kept me from my own research. I could not stop thinking about it.  
  
"Capture eternity."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Locate it. Pin point it. And open the door."  
  
Dumb instinct opened my mouth in the shape of "impossible" but nothing came out. I trusted science. Math was my goddess. If I could calculate the scope of eternity, perhaps I could trigger the doorway? Perhaps I could glimpse some brief vision of eternity and isolate it. I could capture eternity. Like a snapshot. I had met his teasing gaze and reshaped my response, "Certainly."  
  
So I locked my inspiration into that small office and took the problem with me everywhere. Calculating vectors at breakfast, potential energy in the evening. Something like a grand computer programmed to find the meaning of life.  
  
"Professor Nemuro?"  
  
I stopped typing and saw Tokiko standing in the doorway. Her fussy brown hair was cut short and swung in around her cheeks. Framing her intense eyes. I would momentarily forget about my work when I saw her face. Momentarily, because she continued speaking, "I've brought those books that you wanted from the library." She had a small bundle of literature in her hand which she let fall on my desk with an alarming smack. Dust flew up from their leather covers. "It took forever to find some of these. It's a good thing that the librarians know me so well. They had to go into the attic to find this one." She rested one long finger against the top volume. Her nail tracing the design on the cover--the rose crest seal which belonged to the academy.  
  
"Excellent." I adjusted my reading glasses and took the first book eagerly. I skimmed over the first few pages, not reading anything really, and then looked back at Tokiki. She hadn't stopped smiling at me and my heart almost stopped. I gripped the book tighter. "Thank you."  
  
"Anytime." Tokiko tilted her head and waited one more long second before adding, "Well, I suppose that . . . I should leave you to your important work."  
  
Before I could protest or even think, she was gone.  
  
I took a deep breath. Then let it scatter the surface dust from between the pages that I held open. After a moment, my fingers had loosened from their frantically tight embrace. My eyes could focus on the printed words again.  
  
"Once was a magical place . . . "  
  
It was a log of the school's history kept by the school trustees since the academy had yet to start it's own student council. I skimmed through the beginnings, flipping through the ample lists of donations and benefactors. Through the charter student's brief comments. To the list of campus buildings. The scripted blue prints for the dorms, the classrooms, the offices, the tower.  
  
*the castle floor lies in traps with cooled wires set back . . .*  
  
Then I knew. I suddenly understood how to capture eternity. I scattered all of my organized notations as I stood in such a hurry. Then I remembered--the ring.  
  
I saw it, partially covered by an equation scrawled on the corner of train ticket. The rose crest sparkled--clearly defined by the sunlight touching everything on the table. I took it with me and ran to the tower.  
  
"Yes, what is it?" Akio was sitting on his favorite couch, lounging playfully and lowering his eyes as he noticed it was me.  
  
I was often taken back by his overwhelming personality, but that day I stood eagerly--excitement over my accomplishment over shadowing my dislike of the man. "I've done it." I spoke rashly, then second guessed myself. "In theory."  
  
"You've always had a thesis, Nemuro." Akio said, low-throated and teasing. He seemed unconvinced. He started to look away. Toward the tower windows. Somehow, with all of those windows, the tower room was always so dark. I hated this room.  
  
"Yes," I was taken back, and a little angry. "But I think I have the tool. Or the tools, rather, to not only *capture* eternity . . . but to create it!" I lifted my hand in a fist, so he could see my commitment encircling the left ring finger.  
  
Akio leaned forward, "Tell me more." I took comfort. He seemed surprised.  
  
That evening, I had dinner with Tokiko. Her brother and I had become better friends, Mamiya had such a fragile, yet beautiful, interpretation of eternity. We had that interest in common. However, while I searched for eternity, Mamiya had only hope. He said that he only had a short time to live. His openness startled me. Tokiko kept her happy face, although sometimes her hair disguised the sincere emotion of her eyes.  
  
While I could not discover a way to comfort Tokiko, I enjoyed her brother and we had a long conversation about the permanence of sunlight while Tokiko cleared the dinner places. "I wish I could sit in the sunlight for longer, sensei, but Tokiko would rather I only visit the gardens for short periods of time." The wistfulness of his young voice lacked complaint, but loosened something in my soul. My reservations about the project were loosening as well.  
  
"Don't encourage my little brother to over exert himself, Nemuro-san!" Tokiko scolded catching the end of our conversation.  
  
"I would wish only the best for your brother." My tongue suddenly was very dry. "It is late, perhaps I should go."  
  
"Alright," Tokiko's eyes crinkled into a smile. I wished the impossible that she would have asked me to stay.  
  
"Come see me later." Akio's note was taped to the door of my office. I was typically a morning person and wondered at his message. Had he meant tonight? Putting away my concern, I began cleaning my chalk board. I would need as much scribbling space as possible this day.  
  
Hours later, twilight approaching, I was slouched in my desk chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose with chalk-weary fingers. The solution was definitely close, but unclear. I needed to ask the proper question. If I could only find the right question, then the answer would be obvious.  
  
"Where . . . where is Tokiko?"  
  
Indescribably powerful, I had an urge to find the young woman and think about anything other than eternity. The only thing that could distract me-- was Tokiko. However, I also knew where she was, as much as I hated to admit it. She was with *him*. Most likely in the same embrace that I had found them in after I had followed Akio back to the tower room the first time--when he had brought me the ring that sat snug against my finger. A solid reminder of exactly what I had allowed. I had agreed to his plan-- only after I realized that I had lost her--lost all hope of her. I suddenly felt cold at the thought. Where was the sunshine?  
  
I was led to see Mamiya instead.  
  
To distract myself, I offered to take him to the gardens, trying to recapture whatever warm feelings I could as I watched him walking among the roses. Trying to recapture . . . what was it I wanted?  
  
Across the way, he met my eyes and tilted his head to one side with a smile that mirrored his sister's. I was confronted with snatches of memory-- Tokiko when I first met her curious and beautiful, Tokiko just visiting me after a trip to the Academy library, Tokiko--crushed between *his* arms in an awful embrace.  
  
Suddenly warmed by anger, I caught the boy as he passed me and held his face between my tingling hands. His eyes widened, somewhat expressionless as they showed neither fear nor expectation. I slid my fingers through his hair, pushing it back to look at him more closely. Something . . . in those eyes.  
  
Reckless, I smothered Mamiya into my chest taking comfort in his presence and whispered, "You, darling. You are eternal. Forever."  
  
A cooling shadow interrupted my attempted passion. I peered up toward the sky. Searching for the blocked sun, hidden behind the tower, Akio's tower that refused to let sunlight into it. Where else could one recreate eternity? Far far away from the sunlight.  
  
now the drawbridge has been lifted  
  
as the millions  
  
they drop to their knees  
  
The sign read: "Now accepting applications for the Mikage Seminar."  
  
"What's this, senpai?" I felt his slight frame lean against my arm as I finished fixing the sign to the door. "Who is Mikage Souji?"  
  
"I am, pet." The boy held onto me until I'd pulled beyond his reach. I found only incredible sadness left inside of myself after my last attempt to destroy *his* plans. But, somehow, Akio had reconstructed my work in the one place where I knew it might succeed. The prototype calculations had a fatal flaw--the coordinates for eternity's creation were corruptible. As soon as true sunlight touched the building the false image was revealed and the duelists had stopped their work in astonishment. I had falsified a moment of eternity, fooled Akio, but only briefly. The sunlight caused everything to burst into flames, and the purifying blaze killed everyone-- everyone except Mamiya and myself. I had anticipated the disaster and we had been safely outside the walls watching the purifying flames tear down Akio's mockery of truth. I had to keep eternity for Mamiya.  
  
But my success had only been temporary. Tokiko . . . rebuked my actions. She had sided with . . . *him*, Akio? I watched, hurt, perplexed, as she disowned her own brother for allowing me to save him. Mamiya had watched her with a new coldness. He did not react to her physical outlash, but watched her face for one long moment before crossing in front of her to stand by me.  
  
She had turned her anger on me as she saw Mamiya's rebellion. Her eyes-- full of accusations. Accusations that could not harm me. Not after I had found her with Akio. When he had taken her, he had taken what was most precious to me. But I had Mamiya then, and I was not going to let Tokiko take him from me as well. "You're sick." She said and left, her last glance full of rage and disappointment.  
  
I waited. Being with Mamiya comforted me somewhat, even as I watched Akio having my old office and labs rebuilt. We spent our days in the garden. Mamiya loved the roses and began tending them in his own special way, even as he mended my very spirit.  
  
"Coming to the gardens today?" I asked from his bedroom doorway, delighted by how the sunlight rimmed his angelic features--the perfect nose, the gentle chin, the soft lips. I took one step in, his eyes were closed-- tight. I heard a pained breath slip past his lips. "Mamiya!" I rushed forward as my heart stopped--fearful.  
  
"He's dying." Akio's cold voice slithered from the dark shadows. He was sitting in a chair near the shadowed side of Mamiya's bed, legs crossed-- arms crossed.  
  
"What have you done?" I accused, jealousy coating each word with a tight punch. "He's mine."  
  
"Of course, dear Nemuro. Of course." Akio chuckled. "Why would I take him from you . . . when he's going to die so easily so quickly anyway?"  
  
"Bastard." I continued toward Mamiya and let one anxious hand caress his face, protecting it from Akio's appraising gaze.  
  
"Dying so young. Does everything you touch wither and burn, professor?" Akio's voice pounded inside my skull. Get out! get out.  
  
"Bastard." I repeated, more softly. Sitting by Mamiya's side, leaning in, concerned. Checking to see if he was even breathing.  
  
"If only . . . " Akio paused, "You had the ability to make him eternal. Then you could live in this moment forever. You wouldn't lose him as easily."  
  
Tokiko's accusing eyes. Her determined walk--away from me. Her arms-- wrapped around . . . someone else.  
  
I was a weak man, because I still hoped. Longed for the memory--of what used to be.  
  
"You could save him, professor. You know where eternity is to be found. Give it to me."  
  
Even as I saw him reconstruct eternity in the only place that it could exist visible forever. In the one place where the sunlight could not expose the dream. In the tower. I could hardly believe that Akio had achieved what he had set out to accomplish from the very beginning. And I was still bound by that bloody ring. The back of the rose crest burning painfully into my skin.  
  
"Senpai?" The boy's voice was light and his fingers soft as they regained my arm. "Always, let me be with you. Like this." His small hands gliding down my sleeve and taking my fingers. Lifting my hand to his lips, as he kissed the same terrible ring.  
  
"I cannot let him have eternity, even if I have to take it from Akio myself." I promised his beautiful dark smile. His skin was so dark-- different since he had visited the garden so often, I supposed. So much darker. "And then he will never be able to take you away from me."  
  
They pay homage to a king  
  
whose dreams are buried in their minds  
  
his tears are frozen stiff  
  
icicles drip from his eyes  
  
the cold wind blows as it snows  
  
on those who fight to get in  
  
on heads that are small  
  
disillusioned as they enter  
  
I did not observe the first duels of the new student council. What I heard from the students who visited the Mikage Club was enough that I could imagine the general scene. Children, pretending to fight for something intangible that they could not quite understand. The specifics would discourage them. The vast array of potential would attract their individual interests in order to, simply put, revolutionize the world. After all, isn't that what I myself wanted to do? Only I was planning to enter the picture liberated from Akio's rules. I would not champion his chosen Rose Bride but put a new Bride in her place, one who satisfied my path to revolutionizing the world from Akio. Namely, Mamiya.  
  
His sweetness dried the roses into black--faintly smelling like Mamiya himself. I leaned close over the delicate creation. "Perfection. Perfectly preserved." I whispered.  
  
"For you, senpai." He reached down to offer me the bud. I snatched his hand away by reflex.  
  
"No." I said simply. Mamiya's beautiful eyes were so clear in the shadowed room, against his darkened skin. Pure and clear. "Not for me." I repeated more kindly. Loosening my grip on his wrist to hold him more delicately--like a flower. "You are all I want. Let someone else defeat Akio's present dueling champion."  
  
I heard the elevator beginning it's decent. "Now to interview our first duelist. The duelist for the black rose."  
  
*They're unaware what's behind castle walls but now it's written in stone the king has been overthrown by jesterly fools and the power of the people shall come to believe they do rule.*  
  
Tenjou Utena. I watched her defeat each Black Rose duelist. Saw her overcome the darkness in their own hearts for them. She was a ray of sunshine undoing the spell of their secret convictions. And we had one rose left to present her with--my own. I couldn't ally myself with her. But would I fight her in a duel? Did I have no other choice but to revolutionize the world myself? Was the path set before me?  
  
Mamiya sensed my hesitation. "Will you take it? Will you keep me forever? Just like this?" With the last question, he reached up to so lightly touch his lips to my own. The swiftest of moments, I wondered if I had dreamed it. I had dreamed something . . . like it . . . once before. Something about his eyes as they kept mine in the following moments. Something about the eyes. There had been something about Utena's eyes as well. Of all things, why could I not remember this clearly? The thought distracted me from that place for a moment when Mamiya's final words took my decision. "I want eternity."  
  
I would have to bring it to him.  
  
have they lost their heads  
  
or are they just all blind mice?  
  
Just beyond the glass walls, I could see Tenjou Utena leaning toward her companion. Thin arms perched on narrow hips. The boyishly muscular legs and the accompanying boy's uniform. They were in the garden, the rose garden that appears quite like a bird cage from the distance. This was where Akio keeps his own Rose Bride and her Champion.  
  
They were arguing, or rather, Utena was scolding the other girl. Interesting. The Rose Bride must do whatever the person she's engaged to asks of her. They were a formidable unit in the dueling arena--what conflict could follow them into the sunlight? Had I found a weak link in their strategy to achieve this world revolution of Akio's design? Was Utena stronger than Akio intended her to be? Whatever motivated her heart might benefit my own plans instead.  
  
I took a few step forwards and pressed my hand against the sunlight glass. I could almost feel my palm marking the window pane. Then I saw Utena's eyes, profiled--it made me remember--almost. What had I forgotten? The way her pale hair curled over her cheeks and the concerned expression pulling back at her lips as she spoke. My heart pounded.  
  
I curled my fingers, leaving the heel of my hand still firmly pressed against the clear barrier. If I could only break that last barrier, what would I find? What would I remember?  
  
She turns so that her eyes meet mine. And I hear myself say aloud, "Tokiko."  
  
we've heard all their stories  
  
one too many times  
  
It was the same when I spoke to her the first time. I began with straightforward conversation. Dropping enough hints to intrigue the young woman, inviting her to visit the Mikage Seminar. Listening to her responses in order to calculate my next words. She was simple but intelligent--hesitating before accepting anything I said at face value. I stole a glance at her. She was stretching one arm casually letting her fingers rub the back of her own neck. So innocently perceptive . . . reminding me of Mamiya. Or rather . . .  
  
"And I am attracted to you . . . " I added. Realizing it was true a moment later. Taken back, I turned to watch the world from inside the glass. This was the world she saw. This is the world that Tokiko saw. And that, for one moment, . . . that was what I was attracted to.  
  
"Well, if you have any troubled friends. Bring them . . . " Suddenly I couldn't breath. My tongue was dry against the sandpaper roof of my mouth. I couldn't keep up the charade as my hypothesis crumbled, disappeared. I tried not to look hurried even as I pushed open the garden doors with more force than was necessary. I took a deep breath of new air.  
  
Would she come? And when she did, what could I possibly do to her?  
  
I stumbled back to my office and sat in my familiar seat. The formulas on my desk were still piled neatly in one corner--untouched since my bargain with Akio. But now the bargain was over. I had kept my part and received my benefit. He had his castle and I had Mamiya. Now I would take his champion away from him without reservation. And then, maybe then--I could have Tokiko back again . . . when I revolutionized the world.  
  
"Ano,"  
  
I glanced up to see the dark haired secretary standing in my doorway, half hiding herself from me with the door itself. "Yes?" I asked coolly.  
  
"You have a visitor."  
  
"Very good."  
  
I kept this secretary, after asking for her personally, because something about her triggered a long forgotten fancy. In the shadows, I could tell then that the angle of her face was not unlike Tenjou Utena's. But her voice lacked the charming innocence. The secretary suddenly seemed inferior and annoying.  
  
"Well, I'm going now."  
  
I only half heard what the secretary had said to me--but had managed to meet her conversation wit for wit. The majority of my thoughts were programmed to rehearse my interview with the lovely Tenjou Utena.  
  
I waited a few more moments before going to the foyer. The delighted panic I had first felt was dulling into a calculated power. Confronting the Champion Duelist in actuality would be so much easier than acknowledging my phantom memories. As long as I could remain focused on the task at hand.  
  
And everything had unraveled so quickly. My memories blurred over reality. Tokiko--no, it was Utena, she reacted against my propositions. She could not understand that we were so much alike. She could not accept that she wore that ring for the same reason that I did. We had accepted Akio's challenge to revolutionize the world. We had accepted so that we could save the person that we loved. Why else would she concern herself with the Rose Bride's well being?  
  
I was trying to remove the Rose Bride from the picture. Utena could take the Bride for herself. Make the Rose Bride a normal girl again . . .  
  
But she hated what I had done. She hated how I manipulated others to undermine the game. She hated my interference. Tokiko . . . the pain from her furious attack restimulated my cool reason.  
  
"We are not so much unalike, Utena-kun." I warned her. "We both wear these ring because we had made promises to the people that we love."  
  
Her infuriated cry chilled my heart. I would fight her. I would take the revolution away from Akio. And I would take Tenjou Utena away from him as well.  
  
hypnotized by fireflies  
  
that glow in the dark  
  
the parade that's electrical  
  
it serves no real purpose  
  
just takes up a lot of juice  
  
just to impress us.  
  
Welcome to the dueling ring. I stared at the castle floating in the sky, upside down, the spirals pointing toward the ground like spears from heaven. The false lights were almost blinding. This is what I had created. This was the path toward eternity.  
  
I hefted the sword, my left shoulder still smarting from Utena's earlier anger. I watch her even as I remembered our last meeting. The blue of her eyes sparkled with icy determination. This is how she had come so far. Purity. No secret agendas.  
  
If that was the secret of the champion, that must be how I would fight. All around me I see the faces of my precious ones, Mamiya, Tokiko. If I could fight for them then I would be on equal ground with the dueling champion. And I was convinced that I was prepared. I was fighting to make Mamiya my Rose Bride. I would conquer time and bring him eternity.  
  
Tossing the sword into my opposite hand, unconcerned with the handicap, I waited for Utena to bring the battle to the deciding level. If I could defeat her while she was inspired by the spirit of Dios, then I could keep my memories. Then I could remember. I could remember all of those things that I couldn't. There was so much that I had forgotten. What was it? What was I forgetting?  
  
It was something . . . important . . . to me.  
  
I heard Mamiya's voice. Calling to me. Distracting.  
  
What? What was this? As Utena pressed forward I kept my sword up in a defensive position giving a little ground to collect myself. My feelings unraveled with each stroke of her sword. My mind burned with confusion-- trying to concentrate on the battle (why was I fighting) and on the voice.  
  
"You will lose, senpai." My vision blurred and I could almost see his dark face leaning toward mine. His awful lips disenchanting me. "You will lose to her."  
  
I don't want to lose. My throat tightened.  
  
"You were the one to drive Tokiko away. You were the one who destroyed the lives of those first duelists so that you could keep eternity for yourself."  
  
"I never . . . what I wanted was . . ." My defensive arm seemed to carry an impossible heavy weight. I didn't have the strength to become the aggressor. How could he say that? How could he desert me?  
  
"How could I desert you?" The eyes sparkled sinister in the shadowed face. "When it was you who deserted me."  
  
What? My heart stopped. My arm dropped. In the picture I saw the most beautiful, gentle . . . no, innocent face. Who was he? So beautiful . . .  
  
I hardly noticed as Utena destroyed the last black rose. A heart only bears fruit when it loses it's petals.  
  
"Who is he?" I asked aloud, dropping the sword--completely disinterested in that suddenly. I picked up the frame instead and studied it quizzically. His caring eyes and pale skin--imperfect with a scattering of freckles. Standing next to Tokiko--this, my eyes widened, this was Mamiya. My Mamiya.  
  
I looked around. The castle was still visible but dim. Utena was standing nearer Anthy, she seemed curious about me and remained alert but without concern for danger. I had dropped the sword. She had won the duel. I looked around with the amazed gaze of someone who had finally been awaken from a deep sleep with a dream so real that it felt as if I had been awake the entire time. I looked around as if I could hardly believe that I was awake now and that everything else had been the fantasy. What was real then? What did this picture mean?  
  
I met the Rose Bride's eyes. She was not the same as Utena, her gaze was guarded. Suspiciously bright against her dark skin. Dark skin like Akio's.  
  
Then the door to my complete memories stood open. At the same moment, I saw the memory of the past few moments disappear from Utena. She seemed perplexed for the briefest of moments, then she shrugged and wrapping her fingers behind her neck walked away from the dueling arena murmuring to herself. The Rose Bride hovered longer, her expression unreadable. Then she was gone as well.  
  
I clung to the picture with awakened fear and excitement. I had remembered something real.  
  
welcome to the tragic kingdom  
  
cornfields of popcorn  
  
have yet to spring open.  
  
Discover something real, but incredibly sad.  
  
Somehow, somehow in spite of my best efforts to undo Akio's plans--I had been manipulated into serving him. I had given him the keys to creating the castle for Mamiya's life. But what Akio had given me was a terrible golem to sustain only Mamiya's memory.  
  
The boy I had adored had not lived. And I had accepted the false memory willingly, too weak to accept or love reality when I could so easily play with a dark daydream.  
  
I was stunned. How could my love be so shallow when I had such noble intentions? I left the dueling arena after calling Akio to hear to truth from his own voice. He was too eager to twist the cruel blade deeper into my heart. He had taken Tokiko into his bedroom and then he had stolen Mamiya from my very perception.  
  
The sunlight on campus could no longer wash me clean because I had been scrubbed down to the simplest equation. I could understand no more than what I immediately perceived and hesitated to trust even that. I was banished from the Academy. The road before me was . . . no longer prepared. I would not achieve my world revolution.  
  
I stood with my arms limp when I saw Utena walk past me without so much as a glance. The young man with her chatted eagerly and they both seemed to be looking around for another companion.  
  
I wondered if I was so unimportant to her. And Tokiko, had she shrugged me off so easily without my noticing?  
  
But now I could remember how she would smile at me so gently. I could remember her friendly eyes as well as I remembered finding her in Akio's embrace. I could feel the incredible complexity of each discovery as if it were being relived in my very body. My skin warming around the ears, my heart pounding. This was the truth I had forgotten. That I had loved, that I had loved purely, that I had loved Tokiko.  
  
And I felt unburdened. Somehow, my duel with Utena had been the ray of sunshine to burn away the dust on my memories.  
  
As I left the Academy I realized that none of the students could see me. I was no longer a part of their world. And I wondered what was in store for Utena. Innocent as she was, this world still held her completely--wrapping it's promises around her finger.  
  
At the gate, I glanced back at the tower--dark against the sky. I wondered if Akio was watching. I wondered if Utena would seek world revolution or if she would find truth in the dueling arena such as I had.  
  
I remembered her as she was in the rose garden, warm and interested. Independent and generously open to outsiders.  
  
I can only hope that I will meet her again. In another world.  
  
the end.  
  
(Well, if you've made it this far--my goodness, thank you! C/C welcome if you'd like to drop me a line to let me know what you think. It was an older story, but I'm fond of it. Also feel free to stop by and visit http://ham.and.cheese.on.rye.sandwich.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl the Art of Life message board.) 


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